Week 31 and no (gasp!) pocketed page protectors. I threw this spread together in ten minutes (that does not count editing and printing photos, which took much longer). Win.

I skipped the insert this week, challenging myself to fit the whole story of the week into a single spread. Even though I really wanted to do something bigger for our visit to the Google Fiber Space… I thought about it and yes, it can fit in a 5×5 space just fine. I don’t need an insert for everything we do. At least that’s how I’m feeling this week. I still have over 30 photos in there, so I’m feeling pretty good about the decision.

Left side is Instagrams!!! They’re all about 2.5 x 2.5 inches, but they aren’t cropped perfectly. I’m cool with it.

I journaled a list of the things going on in the Instagram photos in the little strips next to the 31.

Love that those few words are enough to tell you what’s going on in all of the photos. I also wrote another sentence along the side of the collage about our friend Steve’s bachelor party, which Jake went to last week, because I realized that I forgot to write something about it in after I’d already finished the spread. That’s what happens if I don’t take a photo / make a note of something. It falls right out of my brain.

I also love that these photos are really showing off how we’re spending time with Eliza on her few weeks off from school: lots of playing outside, parks, dancing, reading, baking, walking, and forts. But you already knew all that, because I listed it. Hah!

For this side, I was originally just going to have the yellow background with the four photo blocks spread out evenly. But then I decided that it needed to be off-center for the balance of both sides of the spread. So I blocked ‘em together. Too much negative space. So I added the blue paper. The photos got lost. So I matted them in Kraft. No room for the words (the kraft was 8.5 x 11 and the photo block is 8 x 8). So I added strips.

I include all this so you can see what my process is like. I have a plan, but I don’t get hung up if it isn’t working. I don’t spend a lot of time looking for products. All of this stuff was at the very top of piles around my desk. I just added the first thing to work. I ran into all of these issues and still spent less than five minutes on this page. I guess I’m trying to tell you not to make things more complicated than they need to be. (Sorry, I’m super rambly today.)

I really like that you don’t do every week in divided page protectors, but you still get the sort of “Project Life” feel even when you have a full 12×12. It must make looking through your album really interesting. (By the way, I’m linking up on this post because it’s the same week as my post, and I’m nit-picky like that. Ha!)